The Simple and Practical Way to Unlock your Potential

Your human potential is coded in your genes and there is a simple way to unlock it. Science is now getting a much clear picture of the inner biological workings of how you can unleash “the giant within” to quote personal development extraordinaire Tony Robbins.

If you set yourself a worthy and lofty goal, you will soon realise that to accomplish this ambitious target, you will have to develop new skills that might scare you. Perhaps you need to become a confident public speaker or a more assertive and empathetic leader, an effort that you might consider a daunting challenge.  The prospect of embarking on developing these skills that you find a massive stretch, might instil self-doubt and fear in you.

Behavioural scientists suggest that if your anxiety makes you avoid something that you need to face and therefore gets you stuck at some stage in the process, a practical course of action will be to confront the situation voluntarily.  A smart confrontation strategy is to break down that which you are avoiding into small pieces, picking whichever piece you want to start with and get going.  They key is to get the development process started, regardless of what activity you choose to begin with. Once that small activity is completed, you move on to the next piece and keep going.

Clinical studies have shown that even though your levels of apprehension might not change much, performing the actions one piece at a time will make you braver. The biological evidence for this phenomenon is quite fascinating.  When you put yourself in a new situation, your genes will code for new proteins that will build new neural structures in your brain.  If you repeat the selected action over and over again, you will reinforce that newly created neural network and your new behaviour will eventually become second nature to you.

What this means from a psychological standpoint is that the information you introduced in your brain through the activity, will gradually turn into a skill, transforming the perception you have of yourself.  Suddenly you will realise that there is more to you than before and that awareness will give you the confidence ammunition to charge forward.

There is a lot of potential You locked in your genetic code. The key to unlocking this potential is by putting yourself in new situations (voluntary confrontation) which will then trigger healthy situational stress.  This process will unlock the potential that resides in dormant form in your genes and will enable you to build the skills that you desire to fulfil the challenging goals that you set for yourself.

Recommendations

Follow these steps, and you will increase the likelihood of attaining your most cherished goals:

1.-Define an ambitious goal you want to pursue.  “What you seek is seeking you” a reminder from Persian poet Rumi that you should aim high and trust that you will be supported on your path to greatness.

2.-Identify the skills required to achieve your goal.  Take time to understand the skills you need to incorporate in your toolbox to attain your goal.

3.-Select one skill and break it down into small development activities.  Make a list of all the different things you need to do to develop the skill no matter how big or small the activity might be.

4.-Pick one activity and get started. No matter what activity you choose, just pick one and make sure you get started.  Once you have reached a certain level of proficiency in that activity, move on to the next one.

5.-Become comfortable with healthy situational stress. Understand that experiencing levels of healthy stress and anxiety are part of the process. Most established public personas like artists and musicians still feel some degree of trepidation when creating or performing.

How to go back to sleep in the middle of the night

You have experienced this situation before. You wake up in the middle of the night, and you desperately want to go back to sleep. “I’ve got a full-on day tomorrow, and  I need all the rest that I can get”, you anxiously remind yourself. You toss and turn hoping that you will transition into a deep slumber, only to realise that it’s just wishful thinking. You have been through this before, so you know that deep sleep will be hard to come by anytime soon or it may not come at all.

There is a common, widespread myth that “if you wake up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep, you should just stay in bed”. If you are able to stay relaxed in bed, experts would agree that staying in bed may help you fall back asleep.  However, if you feel anxious, agitated and/or tense because of your inability to drift back off, sleep experts suggest that you should desist from trying so hard.

If 20 minutes have gone by and you are still unable to fall asleep, then you should get up and do something else. The reason behind this is that your brain thrives on making associations. This means that if night after night you stay awake for long periods in bed, your brain will quickly learn that your bed is a place where you should be awake.

Some people find it hard to follow this advise because they think they are sacrificing precious sleep time by getting up and anxiety levels may rise, but what you have to understand is that you need to start training your brain again to relearn the association with your bedroom being about sleep rather than wakefulness.

If you decide to follow this evidence-based advise, these are a few recommendations on what to do when you get up in the middle of the night:

1.-Meditate for at least 10 minutes.- Go to another room, sit down and meditate. Meditation will quiet your mind and will slow down the fight-or-flight mechanisms of your nervous system (which are mainly responsible for insomnia).

2.-Perform deep breathing techniques.- Most deep breathing techniques aimed at calming down your nervous system will do the trick. My favourite one is referred to as the 4-7-8 technique. Inhale through your nose for a count of 4, hold your breath for a count of 7, and exhale through your mouth for a count of 8. Repeat this cycle up to 6 times only.

3.-Read something light.- Go to another room and read a short story, a light novel or anything that has a calming effect on you. Stay away from the news, heavy fiction, work-related material, dense poetry, etc., since some of this material will require increased levels of attention. Make sure NOT to turn on the light and use a clip-on lamp that you can attach your book or magazine.

4.-Do not eat.-Digesting food in the middle of the evening will definitely interfere with your natural sleep cycle. Besides, eating in the middle of the night may contribute to weight gain, abnormal cholesterol levels, alterations in blood sugar regulations, altered hormone function and inflammation.

5.-Stay away from digital devices.- Digital devices radiate blue-light which upon contact with your retina triggers brain activity and halts the secretion of melatonin (the hormone responsible for inducing sleep).  If you decide to read, stick to old-fashioned paper.